Muncie

Love it, your changes are a big improvement over the stock kit, well done - it reeeally looks good

In addition to rules changes already mentioned, tire and chassis technology were going through a big change in 1965. The new wrinkle wall style drag slicks started showing up and offered a lot more traction. It just wasn't as necessary to raise the front end to get a car to hook up. The front ends started coming down and gas class cars started running a more level attitude. You'll see some of both in 1965 but the extreme lifted front suspensions were mostly gone. Looking forward to watching the progress on your coupe - love the Pontiac

Thanks for another enjoyable great set of pictures.

Wow! great idea - I can think of a lot of uses - thin brass or aluminum, even Evergreen plastic sheets - cuts straight and square - it would be worthwhile to keep a small cutter like this near the workbench for scratchbuilding work. Thanks for the tip.

brass? only .010"? I'm thinking brass because it looks like the only material K&S offers sheet or flat strip in .010 thickness. This answer works for brass .010 thick which is pretty thin material... A decent set of shears will do the trick easily. Best not to use your wife's best sewing scissors or her craft shears but even a cheap set of scissors in good condition will do the job. Scissors will leave a smooth edge, but sharp - careful. It may take work to flatten the curl in the edges but that's not a big deal with this material. Either a little hammer work on a hard surface or rolling a cylinder over the edge with the part on a flat surface. On the pin size holes, a drill will work and the hole should be round enough. On the 1/8" hole, a drill may not leave a round hole in material this thin - drill undersize and use a small needle nose round file to file to shape, size, and location. Most hobby round files that I've seen are 1/8" on the large diameter.

weekend huh? OK, guaranteed you can find a worthwhile car show here with a cup of coffee and a donut - Donut Derelicts, corner of Adams and Magnolia in Huntington Beach, every Saturday morning, it takes over a small shopping center parking lot. 7ish AM or earlier and done by... well, whenever the shopping center opens - so definitely gone by 9:30 or 10:00 AM. Plenty of Street Rods and other cool cars - so cool and big enough that it has it's own tee shirts and web site. https://www.donutderelicts.com/

more good stuff here ---

agree completely, well said. I'm not complaining with what Fireball offers, it is excellent. We could use some good drag racing Holleys - both tunnel ram and Dominator carburetors.

Almost - but both of the Fireball carbs above have vacuum secondaries with the large diaphragm housing. In the early to mid 1970's, Jenkins and most of the tunnel ram small block Chevys used R4224 Holley 660 cfm center squirt, 1:1 mechanical secondary tunnel ram carbs with secondary metering blocks added, choke housings cut off, and other modifications. I don't see such carbs in Fireball's list but I hope Joseph offers them in the future.

Poppy red - https://www.sw-rodandrestocustomcolor.com/colors/PCCL32 Hugger Orange - https://www.sw-rodandrestocustomcolor.com/colors/PCCL50 I painted a K&K Charger Tamiya red based on what I saw in the pictures - it never looked right... Then I learned the K&K cars are poppy red.

Stock or pro-stock, somebody is probably going to be disappointed. The original Bruce Larson kit had the rear wheel wells enlarged for the slicks - including nicely finished molding around the opening. The pro-stock chassis and interior were basically stock but also modified for the slicks. It looks like MPC reworked the wheel wells back to stock for the later model year kits and promos. Then just roughly hogged out the wheel well opening for one last gasp as the Twister Vega. I like seeing the new bodies - what can be seen in the Round2 photo looks good.

absolutely - you can't really go by pictures with poppy red. With the film and printing methods available in the '60's and '70's, poppy red usually prints red in pictures, but it is definitely orange. A very red orange, but it is more orange than red.

Prior to 1982, the overall width limit in most states was 96 inches. After 1982, the federal limit of 102 inches applies most places. Overall length for straight trucks is regulated by the states - usually 40 feet but your state may vary. There are grandfathered limits, permits and other exceptions. Western Star built the cab-chassis for straight trucks and a truck body-builder installed the flatbed.

Dave, beautiful color, looks great, background diorama really shows it off.

Hey!, Mom had one of those! In the late 70's, we had it on it's second or third life. It was an old state car. I don't believe it was a police car, probably a much more mundane office of government. There must have been at least two because it was a different color. I wasn't into decoding production codes so I can't tell you much about it. I can verify that it was a 318 two barrel.

Back before the government stepped in, a dealer could use the year a vehicle was sold for the model year on the title. A vehicle manufactured in 1939 could be titled and sold as a 1941 model year. I'm not sure if that is what happened here - and I'm not that familiar with the Fords in the question... You could be looking at something that Ford built with a different model year than how it's licensed.

same here - clicking on the dot or the star goes to the last unread post, clicking on the title goes back to the first post in a topic. A rough idea of the subject that the topic is posted in is helpful; but I'm not fussy if its in the "wrong" place.

Looks like I'm in for a couple of the AAR's - the 1970 'Cuda is one of my favorite cars due to a family preference for Plymouth station wagons when I was growing up. I can't build stock out of the box. It looks like everything that I need to kit bash this one except wheels and tires is already in the box.

Hey Alan, That's looking great - love it. Good to see it back. I like the transparent top and your other modifications. Well done. Just two cents - The original kit had staggered tire sizes front to rear. The rear bigs were the old thumbprint Firestone slicks. The front littles were the old implement style drag tires which were much smaller diameter than the slick or most of what we have available now. It was a natural rubber rake, or in this case the chassis came out level with the straight tube axle. The Willys gasser in the double kit also had these tires. Replicas and miniatures has them available. The whitewalls are a big improvement so I think a dropped axle would be appropriate - maybe something like the chrome axle in the AMT '40 Ford as an alternative to smaller front tires.

Slixx and Gofer have some generic letter and number decals - but probably not the font for these. The railroad section of the local hobby shop may have something closer in the railroad section - or the internet, google model railroad letter decals or http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=ALPHA oh for those long gone days and lost fonts of Chartpak and Letraset rub on letters... so many fonts.

The finished product looks so good that it makes it look like everything fits like it was made to - checking the build photos shows it is far from it. lots of work well done

Slixx also has decals for the Mickey Thompson Maverick funny car

It's looking good. the front 3/4 inch of the BBC is the bumper location ahead of the cab - so you're good - 3-3/4" x 25 equals 93.75", add .75 and it's so close to 96" that it's right on in scale. (At least within in the tolerance that some of the cabs were built) I'm looking forward to see what you do on this one.

The AMT kit is a 61 series raised cab with 86"BBC. Freightliner also built 96" and a very small number of104" cabs and that was about the limit of the hydraulic tilt rams. With aftermarket modifications, the cab could be any BBC.

That's exactly it. When the Surface Transportation Assistance Act became effective in 1982, the size and weight regulation changed, and the truck market went to conventionals almost overnight. The old size and weight rules were state regulations mostly based on the overall length of the combination tractor and trailer. The Feds changed the rules on the Interstate and designated highways so length is based on just the length of the trailer(s) - the length of the tractor is not included. States had to change their regulations to get federal highway money. Drivers preferred conventionals for more space in the cab (no engine tunnel), better ride, and easier to get into. Fleets changed over to conventionals to retain drivers. edited - rephrased a couple of things for clarity